Leadership Caffeine for the Week of March 30, 2009
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership Caffeine, Performance, Professional Growth, Project Management, Surviving Lousy Leaders
A healthy spring snowstorm blanketed the northwest suburbs of Chicago overnight, making the morning cup of coffee particularly relevant as a source of both warmth and energy.
I’m back with a fresh pound of my favorite fair trade Mexican Roast from a great local roaster aptly named Conscious Cup. My first contribution to stimulating the economy today is to let you know that these great people ship.
My second contribution is to encourage a renewed sense of personal professional accountability. Yep, I’m striking a blow against Boss-Blame…that world class sport that so many engage in as part of rationalizing why their own results might just be falling short of something resembling excellence.
Quit Grousing…It’s Wasted Energy!
It’s common for me to hear quite a bit of grousing about the people we work for from attendees at workshops, at client sites or in classes. And while I don’t doubt that there’s a fair amount of truth in much of the talk about lousy managers and do-nothing exec teams, I truly don’t care and neither should you.
Do not let the chucklehead that you work for hold you back! Do not blame the management team for your inability to hit your targets, develop professionally or create a high performance team. The only one in charge of you is you.
I’ve long since concluded that in spite of our best intentions we have a low probability of fixing most of the bad bosses. Our best bet and your best bet is to develop a multi-pronged approach to the situation.
Suggestions for Overcoming Bad Boss Syndrome:
1. Mitigation. Sometimes “Bad Boss” syndrome can be mitigated by changing your own behavior. I’ve observed many situations where the boss has issues and the individuals that report to him or her have no qualms publicly depicting their lack of respect. While that might in some perverted way feel good, it is wrong.
Try using judo on the situation and increase your efforts to be respectful and helpful and to portray a genuine sense of empathy for the burdens that this individuals bears as a leader and as a person. Hey, no guarantees here, but you’ll be the better person for trying, and it might be you some latitude in the workplace.
2. Partnering. I work with many different project teams in IT and new product development, and I can predict with near certainty the top reasons that will surface in the post-mortem on failed projects. You know the issues as well, and yes, most of them have to do with people and leadership. (An oft-quoted E&Y study indicates that 80% of the reasons associated with poor project performance are tied to people.)
Work on a few project teams, and you can predict the problems like clockwork. Estimates will be off…people sandbag or play politics. The matrix gets in the way…people have multiple priorities and are not linked to one team. The sponsor spends her time jetting around Asia and is never present at critical times to do what a sponsor is supposed to do. And so on.
What is stopping you from working with your peers to focus your collective energies on eradicating the mostly controllable and predictable problems that bedevil so many teams? Nothing! If the project manager lacks the leadership savvy to broker resolutions and build a performance culture, jump in along with your peers and help out. Have an ineffective sponsor? Either educate him or her on the role or seek out a new one. There are few problems that arise that are dependent upon those upstream.
3. Your Personal Pursuit of Excellence:
In the final leg of my bad-boss mitigation & you must develop your own sense of accountability rant, this is for all of you first-time or mid-level leaders that are not getting the support and coaching that you genuinely should receive. Get over it, and make certain that you go to extraordinary lengths to give to your colleagues in spades what you are not receiving from your manager.
Boss not talked to you about career development? Well, you are in charge of your own career, and oh by the way, nothing is precluding you from working with your team members on their own personal development plans.
Don’t get much feedback on your performance? That’s unfortunate, but it is not an excuse for you not recognizing that feedback is your most powerful performance tool and practicing it constantly.
Does the boss work hard to protect turf and strengthen silo walls? Don’t fall into that shortsighted trap. Become a network broker across organizational boundaries. Learn and apply the art of lateral leadership and diplomacy.
The bottom-line
Just as it is common in life for people to hitch their sense of well-being and happiness to the actions and opinions of others, it is common for people to wallow in business misery because of the shortcomings of our leaders. It’s time to unhitch that wagon and take responsibility for your own business happiness and health. Get started this week!
Leadership Caffeine for the Week of March 22, 2009
This week’s focus is on innovation.
It’s time to head back to work and jump-start your innovation-machine. While we all pursue creativity in different ways, mine always starts with a great cup of coffee.
Speaking of innovation, some of my best pots of coffee come from “custom blends” that are nothing more than the last few beans from several different varieties. While purists might cringe, I smile as I sip the always unique, often great but unfortunately unreproducible output. In your case, we are seeking similar results…something that surprises and delights customers, but of course, we want the output to be reproducible.
One of the great things about my view on innovation is that it’s not the sole domain of the engineers, researchers and technologists. My definition of innovation might invite a bit of controversy, but it allows me to extend it to everyone and every function in an organization. There are no boundaries that limit where innovation can take place.
An “Operational” Definition of Innovation and the 3 Leadership Conditions:
Innovation: creating incremental positive value for the firm by solving vexing problems with unique and reproducible approaches.
Easy to say, but the real issue is getting an entire team or organization thinking in those terms. This does not happen with the flip of a switch, but rather is the direct result of your leadership practices.
The Three Fundamental Leadership Conditions for Innovation.
1. You as a leader must have high personal credibility. If you lack credibility, no amount of cajoling, cheerleading, imploring or dictating will matter. People do not innovate on command.
2. An effective working environment is essential. The process of innovating requires people to expose radical and sometimes outlandish ideas. People will only put themselves at risk in an environment where they feel safe.
3. Good team chemistry and problem-solving experience enable innovation. Groups that enjoy working together and have experience in tackling and solving tough problems are capable of remarkable things. Getting a team to this level is of course your challenge.
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Take the three conditions, add in a good crisis or a unique set of opportunities and shake vigorously, and you’ve got the ideal situation for innovation to occur.
We are living in a target rich environment right now, and whether your firm is focusing on survival, sustaining or seizing opportunities, developing a spirit of innovation is critical. Use this concept to help drive fear out of the workplace
Some managers look at their more administrative or infrastructure focused teams and functions and discount their ability to innovate. I’ll push back on that self-limiting view of the world.
I’ve seen remarkable innovations come from marketing organizations, sales teams, IT groups and support departments. In all cases, these groups responded to a crisis or a challenge by working together to do things like cut costs, increase revenues, outflank competitors, improve service to customers, drive more leads etc.
If you’ve got conditions 1 and 2 covered (credibility and working environment), but your team is not used to thinking and acting on innovation, you may need to prime the pump.
- Find a common cause or vexing issue, ideally focused on serving internal or external customers. The more you can link the vexing issue to serving customers, beating competitors or enabling another team to deliver on those goals, the more interesting it will be for your team to pursue.
- Not all teams know how to problem-solve. Teach your team to brainstorm. You may not be the right person to facilitate, so bring in someone from another group or from outside and get out of the way so that people are not encumbered by your presence.
- Ensure that the team moves from brainstorming to selection and implementation planning in an orderly fashion. Some groups go into brainstorm mode and never come out.
- As leader, support the implementation of ideas by knocking down obstacles.
Not every innovation attempt succeeds. Foster a learning culture where failures are leveraged to identify improvements. When you do succeed, make certain to identify why things worked and encourage people to do more.
The Bottom-Line:
The faster you get people focused on problem-solving and in the mindset of “seizing opportunities,” the more effective you will be at pushing fear out the door in favor of value creating activities. It’s time to push the “GO” button on your innovation machine.
“Why Did We Fire You?” Talent Gaffes of the Big and Clueless
Filed under: Crisis Leadership, Decision-Making, Leadership, Surviving Lousy Leaders
If it wasn’t so sad, it would be laughable. The question, “Why did we fire you?” expressed with surprise and genuine confusion was asked by a senior HR exec to a talented and fired sales rep at MegaFirm.
This sales rep was the “last one standing” that actually understood how to sell the products that MegaFirm had inherited with one of its many acquisitions. The products are still there, but the people aren’t. MegaFirm unleashed the neutron bomb from its powerful HR arsenal.
Oh, once the light bulb went on, several of the recently fired were offered their jobs back.
In the movie “Liar, Liar,” Jim Carrey is incapable of saying anything but the naked truth. If this were true for just a moment in the HR world at MegaFirm, here’s how I imagine the conversations with the newly fired associates to go:
“Sorry, we screwed up. We fired you and everyone else because you were there and we needed you to not be there for the numbers to work out on our spreadsheets. You should see this formula we created. All I have to do is reduce the number in one column and our business looks great! I might get a promotion for this.”
“What’s that you ask? Talent, skills and knowledge. No, those aren’t important. We actually don’t care. What counts is that our numbers work. You should have figured out that we actually don’t give a rip about developing people or retaining talent, because we don’t have to.”
“Yeah, so what that we paid to buy your company. You came along with another deal. Yeah, your thousands of customers will not be served…we’ll let your former competitors pick them up. We don’t mind alienating our customers, because we don’t give a rip here either.”
“Hey, are you sure you don’t want your job back? You sound like a smart guy. We probably shouldn’t have fired you. I’ll take someone else out of the spreadsheet if you want to come back. Have I told you about our insurance program?”
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I promised that I would keep this case anonymous, so all of you former colleagues that are guessing about who this is, well, you’re wrong.
As for the recipient of the “Why Did We Fire You?” question, this individual is a one-person success generating machine with the heart of a prize-fighter and the battlefield instincts of Patton.
This individual should be running your sales team.
The bottom-line for now: run, don’t walk, to start finding ways to bring talent like the subject of this post into your organization. MegaFirm’s ignorance should be your gain if you are doing your job.
While the MegaFirms of the world are working themselves down into MiniFirms by focusing on the ratios, you should be arming yourself to the teeth with the best talent you can find. And yes, you will have to make some tough decision on people in your own environment. Make the right choices to make room for the talent…don’t let the spreadsheet rule the day.
There’s something about going into battle in the market with the best soldiers that seems so right.
No Leadership Training Budget, No Problem. Nine Tips, No Charge
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Professional Growth
As someone who is passionate about leadership development, it is heartening to see articles like the one that ran recently in the Wall Street Journal, indicating, “Despite Cutbacks, Firms Invest in Developing Leaders.”
The article highlights the enlightened perspective that some firms and executives have on developing talent during the current tough times. “Despite layoffs and recession-starved budgets, many employers are investing in leadership development programs, hoping not to be caught short when the economy improves.”
Good for these businesses and the leaders. The notion that it is always time to work on identifying and grooming leaders is healthy.
However, if you happen to work in one of the firms that is not as fortunate or as enlightened as the ones highlighted in the article, don’t despair.
You don’t have to have a stinking budget to improve your team’s/firm’s leadership development practices. You do however, have to have your head screwed on straight about this process, and you need to be committed to executing on it as a core, everyday part of your job.
In my workshop and engagement surveys, the number one reason that leaders don’t do a better job supporting professional development is…, you guessed it, “Time.” Fantastically and shockingly, people are willing to admit that they just don’t make time for this part of their job.
All of the training dollars and programs in the world will not make up for the lack of personal commitment about leadership development from you as a leader and from your peers and colleagues.
Leadership development doesn’t start with training, it doesn’t happen in training and it is not the means to the ends. It is context, not core. It offers many potential benefits, including motivation, reinforcement and support for skills development, but only experience gives someone the tools to truly lead.
Regardless of whether you have or don’t have a training budget, do these things and you will increase your batting average for building better leaders.
-Nine Tips for TurboCharging Leadership Development with No Budget:
1. Think about your leadership needs (skills, styles, competencies) in the context of the future, not the present.
2. Think hard about the attributes that you are looking for. Too often, we gravitate towards those that are outgoing and articulate. There are great leaders hidden behind those that seek the stage.
3. As a management group, talk a lot about your talent and their needs. Share insights and feedback on your collective pool of high potentials.
4. A high-potential one year may not make the cut the next year. Manage talent like a portfolio.
5. Share talent across functions to create well-rounded experiences for your high potentials. Make certain that the sharing involves feedback and performance evaluation from the rotational leaders.
6. Design opportunities for individuals; don’t just plunk people into problems. Be deliberate about tailoring opportunity development to the individual.
7. Coach and provide feedback constantly. And then double it.
8. Challenge the people you are developing to do seek out extraordinary ways to strengthen and to gain experience. I have no qualms encouraging a high potential to seek out other forms of leadership and experience by tapping into community needs. You can learn a lot about developing lateral influence skills by working in your community at a nonprofit or at your church.
9. Practice what you preach. Have you taken charge of your own professional development? What’s your plan?
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Don’t let the lack of a budget keep you from your appointed rounds as a developer of leaders. And if you are one of those hoping to be developed, don’t “boo hoo” your firm’s lack of commitment. You are responsible for you own career. Get on with it.
Leadership Caffeine for the New Week
4 quick-shots of your favorite roast to jolt you into action in this new week.
Note from Art: I’ll offer new suggestions almost every week. Readers needing a double-shot are encouraged to checkout prior servings found under the Leadership Caffeine category at the Management Excellence site.
1. Commit to tackling the tough conversation you’ve been delaying
We hate the tough conversations and we naturally push them off, naively hoping that the issues and behaviors might go away. They don’t.
Create time in your calendar and set up the overdue meeting. Plan your discussion ahead of time to increase your comfort and to help ensure that you cover the right issue.
Suggestions: focus on the behavior in question; link the behavior to a business issue; identify the change required; work with the individual to create a plan, and set an appointment for follow-up.
This gets easier the more you do it.
2. Put a positive spin on project post-mortem meetings.
Most of these post-project “beat ourselves up” sessions emphasize the negatives. “What did we do wrong?” is the most frequently asked question. While the intention is good, it doesn’t get the group focused on building on strengths.
For a change, use the question: “What should we do more of?” as a discussion prompter. The difference in wording is subtle, but the conversation will take on a decidedly positive tone emphasizing the development of best practices.
Try it. You have nothing to lose and some great best practices to reinforce.
3. Live and lead by the adage: Seek first to understand and then be understood.
Talk less and listen more. Focus on improving your active listening skills. Resist the urge that so many leaders have to dominate the conversation.
Just because you’re in charge doesn’t mean you have to carry the conversation load. To the contrary, the most effective leaders know the power of learning by listening.
Suggestion: work on improving your Questions to Comments ratio. The more questions you ask, the more time you will spend listening to others.
4. Declare a moratorium on “first thing Monday morning” staff meetings.
OK, you may have to work on this one for next week. If you run a weekly staff meeting, make it a “second thing” or schedule it over or after lunch. Give your team time to reboot and dive into the week.
I’ve worked for a number of CEOs that liked to start the week off with a “first thing” staff meeting. While the CEOs clearly thought this was a good idea, staff members attended purely in compliance mode.
Most people I know spend some time on Sunday night preparing for the week, but the “first thing Monday” window is time to start moving, not to start sitting. Your managers need time to greet their teams, look at and update forecasts and reports, ensure that priorities are in order and deal with any start-up fires.
While your “first thing” staff meeting is important to you, you’re a minority of one.
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Speaking of getting to work. It’s time to push away from the keyboard and find someone to listen to.
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